


You Must Remember This

by WillowPerpetua



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Amnesia, Bucky Barnes Recovering, Identity Issues, M/M, Medical Procedures, Memory Loss, Psychologists & Psychiatrists, Steve Rogers and the 21st Century
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-28
Updated: 2015-10-08
Packaged: 2018-04-17 14:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 17,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4670534
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WillowPerpetua/pseuds/WillowPerpetua
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After an accident during a mission Steve is left with no memories. A nearly-recovered Bucky takes on the task of helping Steve find himself.<br/>Without the burden of his past, Steve is free to live as a 21st century man.<br/>While Bucky worries if Steve needs him anymore, Steve is falling for the man watching over him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Fundamental Things Apply

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by a fic request by theredstarofjustice to whom I am eternally grateful.

“I fucked up.” Bucky says, entering the room, out of breath. The only comfort that lingers at the back of his mind, tattered and broken, but present all the same is that Steve is alive. 

“What happened?” Natasha asks, already jumping into action. Nothing about her is still, even during peacetime, but now she is fluid, moving constantly. The roll of her shoulders and way she shifts her weight between feet keeps her ready for disasters like this one. 

“Steve.” Bucky says. “I eliminated the threat, but we were wrong. They were after him.” 

“What happened?” Natasha asks again. They arrive on the ground level, where Steve stands with his back to them. His hands rest casually at his sides. He surveys the building, looking all the way up to the ceiling. 

“H—how long have you been standing there?” Natasha asks Steve. Bucky knows he should have briefed her on the situation, but what could he say? Given all that she has seen, she probably expected to see Steve laid out on a gurney. Instead, he turns around with a pleasant smile. 

“Sorry. Am I not allowed in here?” He asks. “This guy told me to wait.” He nods his head to Bucky, who feels his whole world swoop around him. _This guy_ , it rings in his ears. 

“No, it’s okay, Steve. Let’s get you upstairs.” They usher him into the elevator before anybody can hear him. 

“So it’s Steve, huh?” Steve asks. “I can work with that.”

 

* * *

 

 “Steve.” Bucky says with a gentle tone he doesn’t remember his voice can carry anymore, “Do you know what day it is?” The silence in the elevator feels oppressive, making his head feel wrong, dizzy in an unfamiliar way. He hopes that whatever Steve has is not contagious. Maybe the elevator was a bad idea. From the look he shares with Natasha, he thinks they may be having similar thoughts.

“Well, not really.” Steve says. “I don’t think I know…” His words trail off while he considers something. Bucky wishes, not for the first time, that he could read Steve’s mind. He has never met a psychic—not a real one, anyway. He has met a lot of strange people in the past year, but none of them were able to see into his thoughts.

He was glad of it when he was trying to regain his memories. The idea of having somebody inside of his head made him feel a little queasy. Now that it is Steve whose mind is in danger, it is a horse of a different color. Bucky wishes there were somebody who could get under the hood and tell him what is wrong. He looks at Steve, the way his face is so relaxed. The frown that stays etched into his brows and around his lips has eased into a serene sort of blankness.

 _Who are you?_ Bucky wonders.

Therapy is hard. They won’t let Bucky in the room where Steve is at the mercy of a trained professional. So he sits outside in the nicely upholstered chairs with the calming artwork and the feeling of panic that is trapped inside of his chest and won’t let up no matter how many times he clenches and relaxes his fist and counts backward from one thousand. They are safe, Bucky tells himself. They both are.

He finds himself in the restroom staring into the mirror trying to convince himself of this truth. Steve is safe, even if he does not know it. Bucky knows it now. They are safe, safe, safe.

When Steve’s appointment ends, they ask for Bucky.

“Bucky?” Steve asks. “Who the hell is Bucky?” He giggles. Bucky does not giggle. “Oh, come on. It’s a funny name.”

“It’s my name.” Bucky says. He glances over his shoulder. “Punk.” Because this is Steve, and that is what they say. Steve does not say _Jerk_ , like he should. He does not answer the call and response that they shared since childhood. It feels like taking a drink of milk when he expects water.

“Then I guess it’s a good one.” Steve says before Bucky is ushered into the office.

“Okay, Doc. What’s going on with Steve’s brain?” Bucky asks the second the door is closed.

“Please have a seat, Mr. Barnes.” Dr. Garner says, settling down behind a large oak desk. It is sturdier than the one Bucky smashed during one of their earliest sessions together, back when Bucky’s brain hurt and buzzed and did not feel like his own at all.

“Tell me.” Bucky says. Dr. Garner gives Bucky the look that Bucky knows, kind but firm. He has to give something to get something. He takes a seat. “Please.”

“It’s not good.”

Bucky feels far away.

“So we can deal with it. Like we’re dealing with me.”

Dr. Garner shakes his head. His voice, so sonorous and soothing runs through Bucky’s mind and he has to force himself to hear the words.

“No, Bucky. We can’t use the same methods. Steve has had a different kind of shock. His mind has been through a very sudden trauma. From what I can tell, everything has been erased, completely—“

“But he’s not a vegetable. He can talk and he knows some stuff—“

“Please don’t interrupt.”

“Sorry.” Bucky says. He is getting better, but the little things, manners and niceties, still trouble him. He needs Steve for that. He needs Steve for so much.

“It’s true. There are many things that Steve seems to understand, but who he is, his identity, his memories, many of the things that you could not recall when you came to us, are impossible for him to access right now.” Dr. Garner says, as kindly as any person can.

“So we tell him.” Bucky says. He is already determined: He will get Steve back if he has to spoon feed the information to him, himself.

“I am afraid that is not an option.” Dr. Garner says. “To do so could trigger a mental collapse. He won’t be the same. He might _understand_ , but he will not be able to _be_ that person. Please, Bucky. Do not open Pandora’s Box.”

Bucky nods and rises, unable to form words. He shakes the doctor’s hand, because that is what Steve would do. It is what Steve would expect him to do. He leaves the office feeling ill.

When he sees Steve, smiling up at him from the chair in the waiting room, that sickness in the pit of his stomach evaporates. He can do this. They can do this.

“Hey.” Steve says. He sounds genuinely pleased to see Bucky, not in the patient way that he used to sound whenever Bucky entered a room: like he was relieved at being allowed at last to slip into the comfort of being himself with somebody who understood him.

The truth is that Steve has been tired for a long time. There was something that troubled his mind. Bucky wants to blame himself. He has blamed himself, but the reassurance from friends has been constant. There is a part of Steve, beneath all his vigor and the leadership, after he jumps out of helicopters and charges home from battles victorious that is simply sad. There has been nothing for Bucky to do but sit with that part of Steve in comradery.

Right now, though, Bucky sees none of that. In Steve’s smile, all he sees is a blank slate. Steve’s voice rings true, it is his, but without any undertones of doubt or regret. All at once, the truth of the matter comes crashing into Bucky. This is a gift.  
This is everything he would have wished for, if he had been able to wish back when he started out.

“Hey, Steve.” He says. “Let’s go home.”

 

* * *

 

 

“I’m just saying, I might have liked a phone call when our fearless leader went all Anastasia on us.” Tony says from the Starkphone in Bucky’s right hand while Bucky taps out a reply to Natasha with his left.

“I called you as soon as I had a second to breathe, Tony.” Bucky says. “And, no. I don’t think you need to come in for this unless you get called in. It’s a courtesy call. Because I’m courteous.” He hears Stark laugh at his joke and smothers the glowing coal of pride that he feels that he can make jokes and listen to people laugh at them.

“Just keep me in the loop, okay?”

“Will do.”

The connection is broken and Bucky turns his attention to finishing his response to Natasha. It is a simple update on the day. There has been nothing to report. Babysitting Steve is the simplest assignment he has come across in a while.

“Did I do something wrong?” Steve asks. Bucky whips around in his seat. He hadn’t realized Steve was there.

“What? No. Of course not.” Bucky says. “Why would you think that?”

“You’ve been talking about me.” He raises an eyebrow, “What, like you thought I couldn’t tell? And it sounds like people are pretty upset. Plus that meeting with the psychologist. He was nice and everything but I get the sense that I messed up pretty bad.”

Bucky runs a hand across his face and leans back against the couch. He wants to call Steve _doll_ and kiss him stupid for asking such a dumb question, but that is strictly off the table. Instead, he takes a measured breath and shakes his head.

“No.” Bucky says. “You did everything right. I messed up and you got hurt.”

“So, it’s like…” Steve goes quiet. “Is it brain damage?” He asks.

“I don’t know.” Bucky says. Steve takes a deep breath.

“Is it permanent?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“Do you know me well?” Steve asks. “Because I don’t know anything about myself and I feel like you are the person I should ask about stuff.”

“Yeah, Steve. I know you. I’m your—“ Bucky pauses, stalled and unsure. He doesn’t know what to say. Best friend is the obvious thing. Partner is the truth in all things: work and life and everything in between, but they never discussed it in so many words and Bucky can’t bring himself to say it. Not without asking Steve first, and there is no Steve to ask right now.

“Yeah?”

“I’m your friend.” Bucky says, defeated.

“Oh.” Steve says. For the first time, Bucky sees the frown that he knows so well slide into place. It is not as reassuring as he imagined it would be.

“Is that okay?”

“I thought. Never mind.” Steve perks up again. “I’m glad I have a friend.”


	2. On That You Can Rely

“So this Steve dude,” Steve says, shattering the silence, “He is kind of an old fashioned person isn’t he?”

Bucky startles, partly because he was engrossed in his thoughts, musing over the situation in his mind, replaying the seconds, slicing them down into pieces so that he can dissect every mistake he made that got them here. Also because he doesn’t know how to respond. Dr. Garner warned against trying to shove too much of Steve’s personality back into his damaged mind. It won’t work. He is like Bucky now. They can’t fix themselves, they have to move on.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Bucky says. “You’ve always been pretty progressive, really.”

“Then what’s with all the antiques?” He asks, gesturing around at their things. Their home is by no means a museum, but some of their items from before the war, from a lifetime ago, when they were both different people, remain to remind them that not everything got destroyed. Right now, Bucky feels like smashing it all to pieces.

“It’s nice to know where you come from, y’know?” He keeps it vague. Steve shrugs.

“Nice for you, I guess.” He is not bitter. Simply observant.

“Fair point.”

“What do you want to do?” Bucky asks, searching for anything to break the moment.

“Sorry?” Steve’s brow furrows in confusion, he shakes his head back and forth. “I thought I wasn’t allowed to go anywhere.”

“Not yet, no.” Bucky agrees. He doesn’t add that he is sure very little could stop Steve if he really put his mind to leaving. “But you’re free to do whatever you want here. It is your house after all. We could watch TV or order—“

“I’d like to draw.” Steve says. “I don’t know why I said that. Am I an artist? Do I do that?”

“Not lately. But yes.” Bucky says. “Come with me.”

They travel from the living room, where Steve stood like a guest surrounded by his own belongings, to their bedroom, where he stares at his bed like he doesn’t sleep there every night. Bucky brings him to the study just off the bedroom where Steve sometimes draws. Most of the time, Steve avoids this room, it has become stale with disuse, a place that their eyes skim over. They pretend it is not there.

Bucky thought he understood why Steve stopped drawing. His own recovery took so much time and energy. Bucky felt like he was a black hole, sucking up all of Steve’s light and creativity until nothing remained for his paper and pencils which were squirreled away so lovingly in a space he once created with devotion and care.

Now, however, he sees the light in Steve’s eyes. It is the same spark that used to ignite on Christmas mornings in the one room apartment by the train tracks that rattled and froze all those years ago. Bucky saved up for a new journal or pencils for Steve and never mind that the red ones never got used or that the pages filled up slowly because Steve tried to cover every inch that he could. It was the look on his face that mattered and it is that same look that he sees now. Wonder.

“I must really be something.” Steve says. His voice is all breath as he takes a step into the room. His eyes caress the easel and drink in the shelves of art books, organized by era.

“Well, yeah.” Bucky says. “Of course you are.”

“So do I just…” Steve trails off, looking around the room, as if he doesn’t know where to begin.

“Usually, you use pencils. That’s all we used to have.” He picks up an empty pad of paper, with the shrink wrap still clinging to it. He carefully avoids the books that already have sketches in them. They might require explanations that he cannot yet provide. “Here.” He says as he hands it to Steve, “It might unlock something.”

“Will you stay?” Steve asks as Bucky turns to leave Steve to it. Bucky spins back on his heal. A hopeful feeling rises to the surface.

“You want me to?”

“If you aren’t busy. The company would be nice.” Steve says. Bucky promises to be right back and runs, truly sprints, to grab a book. He settles in the sunlight to read. At the rate that he has been going, trying to find out all the minutia of the world, from politics to pop culture over the past seventy years, Bucky finishes at least two books a week and still feels like he will never catch up on all his time on ice.

After an hour, the scratching of the pencil on paper comes to a halt and Bucky is nearly finished with his book. If anybody asked him what he read, he wouldn’t be able to tell them a word. He could tell them all about the way Steve smells from across the room: Clean, strong. The _Steve_ smell of him watered down by distance, old wooden furniture, art supplies, and too many books crammed onto the shelves around them.

He could tell anybody who asked about the way Steve’s brow furrows when he concentrates, just like it always has, except he isn’t shaking his head the way he used to. Instead, he sticks his tongue out now when he gets lost in thought. This is new. He doesn’t lean in too closely to the paper out of habit, the way he used to, because his vision used to go fuzzy. He doesn’t know that his vision used to be anything but perfect.

“If you’re bored, you don’t have to stick around.” Steve says.

“No. It’s fine.” Bucky turns a page. “I’m a sniper.” Steve looks up at this, the first time his eyes have left the page in the past hour. It occurs to Bucky that Steve doesn’t understand. “I can sit still for a long time. Part of the job description. I don’t mind.” He says to clarify. Steve nods.

“So, what am I, exactly?” Steve asks.

Bucky puts his book down.

“Wait.” He says. “Nobody told you?”

“No. Am I some kind of criminal or something? Oh god. Is that what happened?” He asks. “Here I am, sitting around in this nice house with this—“He gestures to Bucky in a way that Bucky can’t translate, “Just thinking I am some average guy when I probably tried to kidnap the president or something. God, they put a sniper on me. What did I do?”

Bucky laughs. He watches Steve lean back in his chair and close his eyes in remorse for something he can’t remember, and Bucky is overcome with laughter. It’s wrong, he knows it, but there is nothing to quell the full-body shakes that take him over while he bellows the laughter from deep in his belly.

“It’s funny?” Steve asks. “What’s funny?”

“Steve.” Bucky says, once he has settled. “That’s not it. I promise.” Against the advice he received, he takes Steve to the Modesty Closet. It’s a private joke between the two of them. A closet next to the bathroom where they keep the medals and the newspaper clippings. It is where all of the excess is stored, with honor, but not where they have to look at it every day. Because, really, who can look at that much red, white, and blue every day of their lives?

“This is what you do.” Bucky says, ushering Steve inside.

He doesn’t know what he expects. Maybe awe. Perhaps pride. He might have expected the amazement of the American public reflected back in Steve’s glassy eyes, swimming in tears, while the sounds of applause and cheers sound vaguely in their shared memories—the cultural memory of Captain America, captured on reels of tape and audio recordings for the past seven decades.

What Bucky Barnes could not have expected is Steve’s nonchalant shrug.

“Okay.” Steve says. He nods his head once and turns away from the memorabilia.

“Okay?” Bucky asks. He follows Steve back into the hallways, toward the living room, where Steve takes a seat on the couch. He does not prop himself onto the end cushion, next to the side table closest to the door where he always sits. Instead, he nestles into the corner seat, where he can comfortable splay both arms out along either side of the back of the couch.

“Yeah.” Steve says. “Looks cool. So, I, what?” Steve shrugs, “I work with you? That looks like fun.” The smile is contagious. Bucky feels the tug on the corner of his lips. He hasn’t thought of it as fun in a long time.

“I guess it can be, sometimes.” Bucky agrees. “When it goes well.”

“And I take it that something didn’t go so well.” Steve says. The smile fades from Bucky’s face.

“Not really. No.” He says.

“Okay. Well, the way I see it, you can either keep beating yourself up over something I can’t remember, or you can do something about it and help me figure out who I am supposed to be. That guy?” Steve points back to the hallway with the Modesty Closet, “The one in all those pictures? I don’t know him from Adam, so it’s up to you to help me figure it out. Okay?”

Steve is giving him _that look_. He can’t possibly know that it is _that look_ , but it is. He has the stern jaw and the overlarge eyes down pat. He might not remember everything about himself, but some things are innate. Bucky keeps himself from sighing through sheer willpower alone.

“Okay.” Bucky agrees.

“Good.” Steve says, offering his hand. Bucky shakes it, and feels the electric surge of energy that alights along his fingers when they touch Steve’s skin. That feeling never changes no matter how much he and Steve both change. “Because I have a feeling a lot of people are depending on that guy. We need to make sure I’m up to the task.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am thrilled by all of the support for this story. Thank you for reading. Please come say hi on Tumblr (mademoisellemigraine.tumblr.com). Have the best day ever!


	3. No Matter What the Future Brings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be out of town this weekend, so I won't be able to update. Please look for chapter four next week! You're all wonderful. Have an excellent week.

“Again.” Natasha says, the third time she throws Steve to the mat. Steve gets up, rolls his shoulders, and looks through the observation window at Bucky as if to say _How?_ Or maybe _Why?_ Natasha clears her throat with pure menace. Steve braces for the onslaught to continue. “Ready?” She asks.

“Ye—“Steve is already on the mat before he has finished speaking.

“Again.” She says.

When they take a break. Steve retrieves a towel, fluffy and warm, from the rack where they wait with bottles of icy water. Bucky looks on from behind a panel of glass with Agent Coulson, watching the scene play out before them. Steve takes a swig from a water bottle and hangs his head down. Rivulets of sweat drip down behind his ear. Bucky knows that path and thinks hard about anything else.

“I thought there would be some kind of muscle memory.” Bucky says. Steve can’t hear them back here. He can’t hear the worry in Bucky’s voice.

“There is.” Agent Coulson says. “He is getting it. He will. He doesn’t remember any of his training this time. After the defrosting, Back when Agent May was teaching him Hapkido, it took him three days to master the basics and he had his army training—“Bucky cuts him off with a look.

“You know how much training we got in those days.”

“Remember who we are talking about here.”

“Right.” Bucky nods. “He’ll get it.”

Agent Coulson leaves without speaking to Steve. He is a guarded man, but Bucky can see past that. He knows that this situation is troubling, even for him.

Steve and Natasha are at it for another forty-five minutes while Bucky stands at the observation window with rapt attention. He feels like he hasn’t taken a breath in an hour and a half. Watching them move together is a torturous process. He never imagined he would want to see Natasha bested, but at this minute, he remembers that feeling, the one he used to feel when he was a kid in Brooklyn, watching Steve from the mouth of an alley. He just wants Steve to win for once.

The difference is, this time around, it is Steve who is twice his opponent’s size and still she throws him to the mat like he is a rag doll over and over again. Natasha smirks down at Steve again before offering a hand up.

“I’m done.” She says.

“Really?” He asks. “I could do this all day.”

“You think it’s easy wiping the floor with you, Rogers?” Natasha asks before she dumps what little remains in her water bottle over herself.

“Can’t be that hard.” Steve says.

“Bucky.” Natasha says, panting. Bucky steps out into the practice area. It smells like sweat, clean and hot and good. It smells like Steve and he wants to stay with it, maybe a bit too selfishly, here where it is safe to do so. “Your turn.” Natasha tosses a towel at him. He catches it without thinking. “Step on up and show Stevie here how it’s done.”

The suggestion makes Steve smile, surprised and scandalized, like he had not guessed it would be allowed. Bucky can’t think of an excuse not to, so he removes his shoes, steps onto the mat, and squares up. Steve is ready for him, but there is no fight. He crumples. It is like he has never been in a fight in his life.

“What was that?” Bucky asks as he helps him up.

“You tell me.” Steve says, there is defiance in his eye even now.

“It was potential.” Bucky decides. “Keep your feet under you, okay? And just—“He thinks it over, mulling over the advice before he decides to tell it like it is. “Here’s the thing. I can take it. Natasha? She’s here because she can deal. Any other time, we are on your team and if you try to hit us, we’re going to have a problem, but right now, in here, you need to get better.”

Steve nods. He’s trying. Bucky braces for impact. He doesn’t know if this will help Steve remember or if it will just hurt.

“So right now, you’re not my friend. You’re my mission. Got it?”

Steve nods his head again. “Okay.” He says. “Got it.”

Bucky can feel Steve learning as they go. He adjusts to Bucky’s movements and anticipates his actions. Steve doesn’t let him play the same tricks twice. Knowing that they are advancing is almost as rewarding the simple contact with Steve. It is twisted, terrible perhaps, that he feels a thrill run through him every time skin grazes skin, but he doesn’t know how much he will be able to touch Steve and he has grown accustomed to Steve’s warmth over the past few months. He holds Steve close and locks the feeling away.

“Try again.” He says when he lets go.

Three hours later, they stumble toward the showers, aching and tired. Bucky can feel the endorphins racing through his system, making him feel lightheaded and happy. He sees that feeling reflected back at him in Steve’s smile. Bucky makes a show of organizing his things while Steve rinses off. There is a sense of decorum that he feels he cannot break. He nursed Steve back to health so many times when they were kids, bathed Steve, for Christ’s sake, but there is a hesitance that holds him back now. Every ounce of trust that Steve puts in him is precious. He can’t risk any piece of it.

“You’re doing better than you think.” Bucky tells Steve as they leave the training facility and head back to their apartment.

“Natasha said the same thing.” Steve tilts his head to the side and watches Bucky carefully. “I didn’t think I was doing badly.”

“I—“Bucky stumbles over the thought. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“I’m glad you did.” Steve says. Steve, from before, would have been livid that he had not been able to beat Bucky, and especially Natasha. Bucky imagines him fuming during the walk, taking long strides that would leave Bucky in the dust. Instead, Steve keeps an even gait, swinging his arms at his sides, walking closer to Bucky than he has in a while. “I don’t mind.” He says after a slow, considerate pause.

“What don’t you mind?” Bucky asks, because his mind has already traveled down his arm to the hand waiting there to be held.

“I know it is going to take me a while to relearn things. I can’t expect to go running off into the next big fight tomorrow. I’ll take it slow. The only feeling I can’t stand is sitting around doing nothing.”

“What do you want for dinner?” Bucky asks, pulling his phone from his pocket. “I’m starving. If we order now it can be there by the time we get home.”

“Can we go out somewhere?” Steve asks.

“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, buddy.” Bucky says.

“You mean I’m still not cleared for civilian locations.” Steve says. Bucky glances at Steve from the corner of his eye. He looks resigned to it, peaceful almost.

“You will get there. Bear with us for the time being.”

“What do you think?” Steve asks. “You think I’m still me?”

“Yes, Stevie. You’re you.” There is something different that Bucky can’t define, and so he doesn’t try. Nothing about this memoryless Steve seems wrong to him. Without the constant emotional turbulence that defined Steve—the way he put a brave face over a sea of emotion that raged inside him, unceasing and unforgiving—Bucky doesn’t know who Steve will be anymore, but he likes this man who walks beside him all the same. He is quiet now, calm in a way that reaches all the way down to the ground with each of his steps. He is solid just as Steve always has been.

They arrive at home and order pizza. Even the way that Steve eats has changed. He does not race through his food like a starving animal, as if there will never be any again. That was a learned trait. Scarcity, food deprivation, first during the uncertain times of their childhoods and then during the war, made Steve eat his fill every time it was offered. He understood the value of food back then. This meal is different. They eat, as they always have, with purpose, but with each slice of pizza, Steve leaves behind the peppers.

“You don’t like them?” Bucky asks, glancing at the discarded food. Steve shakes his head while Bucky scavenges them from Steve’s plate and finishes them off. Bucky has not forgotten the time when they cleared their plates or ate the food at the next meal. He also has a fondness for peppers.

“What do we usually do now?” Steve asks. Bucky’s brain grinds to a halt. His pulse is always a steady forty beats per minute, even, reliable, and slower than almost all human beings in resting situations. He can count on his heart. Right now, however, he can feel it speed up, the thrumming sensation pounding harder in his chest. He knows exactly what they would be doing right now if they were both able to agree to it, informed and completely within their own minds.

After dinner and before bed, when the sky is such a brilliant shade of orange and there are no catastrophes to avert, Steve and Bucky should have all the time in the world for each other. The thoughts chase themselves through his mind in a moment, a fraction of a second after Steve asks the question, but it feels like far too long to wait to answer. Bucky clears his throat.

“Let’s, um.” He glances around “You want to watch TV?” He asks.

“Sure.” Steve says. He takes his new place on the couch.

“What do you want to watch?”

“Doesn’t matter.” Steve says.

“Oh, right.” Bucky nods. “I guess not.” He turns to the news to chase away his distance from the world. A story about Tony Stark is the first thing to appear on the screen.

“We know him, right?” Steve asks.

“Yes. He’s on our team.” Bucky says. His heart is definitely pounding now, he can feel it in his throat and his fingertips. Alight with the possibility of a memory, even if it is of Stark. What kind of cruel irony would that be? Bucky Thinks.

“You were talking to him on the phone earlier.” Steve says, eyes still glued to the screen.

“Right.” Bucky relaxes back into the couch again. Not a memory. He doesn’t know if he ought to feel disappointed or relieved. He cannot help but notice that Steve doesn’t let out a huff of agitated breath at the mention of Stark’s billions of dollars, or the rumor that he will be building a new mansion on the coast of Florida. There is also no discussion of the quality of the nightly news. Bucky settles on relief as his overarching emotion for the night.


	4. Moonlight and Love Songs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Back from the break! Thank you all for your patience. All the love.

****“Where do you sleep?”

Sitting next to each other on the couch, too close and not close enough, it is not an innocent question. Not really. Bucky knows Steve’s mind, even this blank, erased mind, and he knows the way it works, especially now that there is nothing left to do with the night but find their way to bed.

“Why do you ask?” Bucky asks to stall for time. He doesn’t want to answer. His mouth tastes like toothpaste and feels just as thick. He does not have a clever way to evade this conversation anymore.

“Because you slept on the couch last night.” Steve said. “I don’t want to put you out of your bed if it is making you uncomfortable. I can take the couch.”

“I can sleep anywhere.” Bucky says.

“You shouldn’t have to.” Steve shakes his head and scrunches up his nose.

“I don’t mind. It’s fine.”

“But you usually sleep in the bed, right?” Steve asks. He won’t drop it.

“Why?”

“The pillow on the right smells like you.”

It is a simple observation. It shouldn’t make Bucky’s eyes squeeze up tight while he inhales a deep sympathetic breath in response.

“Sorry.” He says. “I can change the pillowcases.”

“No.” Steve tucks Bucky’s arm around him. “I want you there, okay? Do you need me to ask? We don’t have to do anything, just, it would be nice not to be alone, you know?”

Bucky feels like a balloon has inflated in his chest. He does know. Last night, he woke up every hour with  a panicked feeling in his chest, arms reaching out blindly in the darkness for Steve at his side. It took all of his self-control not to check in on Steve, just to make sure that he was alright. Sleeping next to him might make it easier. He nods.

“Okay.”

Bucky reconsiders the decision the moment his head hits the pillow that Steve told him carries his scent. He becomes painfully aware of every molecule that makes up his body, and the space between him and Steve on this bed which is big but not nearly big enough. The darkness is not dark enough, the quiet is not silent enough, and the time spent between crawling between the sheets and slipping into blissful unconsciousness seems like a terrible farce that he never should have agreed to. Bucky rolls over onto his side, away from Steve and lets out a deep sigh. The city lights frame the curtains, and he watches them dance in a breeze from the air vent while he counts Steve’s breaths.

Swaddled in the blankets, he wakes up the next morning with a comfortable weight at his back. Bucky closes his eyes and relaxes against the warmth of Steve’s arms. He can’t remember the last time they lay like this together, just the two of them with nothing to do and nowhere to go. He presses his head against Steve’s shoulder, eyes still shut against the morning light, and breathes in deep.

And then Bucky wakes, truly. He remembers that Steve does not remember. The reality of his life comes flooding back to him all at once. Painful and real. He twists away from Steve too quickly.

“Morning.” Steve says through a yawn.

“Hey.” Bucky says, already sitting up, facing away from Steve. His feet are planted solidly on the floor.

“Dreams.” Steve says. Bucky turns over his shoulder to watch Steve’s face as he reflects over the images he saw while he slept, trying to make sense of them all. “I don’t know how to—“Steve stops mid thought.

“Go on.”

“It was weird.” He sits next to Bucky so that they touch at the shoulder, and stares ahead toward the curtain. “You were there, just like you are now. I was there, too, but I was different. Slower. Crooked. Everything hurt just a little bit, even normal things.”

Bucky tries not to let anything show on his face. Steve goes on.

“What were we doing?” Bucky asks.

“I don’t remember.” Steve answers, a bit too quickly, too stiffly. He is, and always has been, a terrible liar. Bucky chooses not to push him on the question. Steve doesn’t want to tell him, and he can put two and two together from the way that he won’t meet Bucky’s eyes. He wished he hadn’t asked.

“What do you feel like doing today?”

“There isn’t really an answer to that, is there?” Steve asks. Bucky understands. The restrictions on Steve’s life are an inconvenience, and they prohibit them from doing a whole lot.  “Can I keep training?” Bucky nods. That is just about all they can do.

* * *

 

Training does not fill enough of their day. Bucky imagined they could keep going all day and still have energy to spare, but the wear on his mind is too taxing. There are only so many hours of rolling around on a mat, inhaling the smell of Steve, growing headier and stronger by the minute that Bucky could stand before he decides to call it quits. He taps out.

Bucky waits until Steve has finished with the shower to get clean again. These little interruptions to their lives spark a flame of annoyance in him that burns hot and slow. It isn’t fair. He shakes his head and his hands, and tries to reason with himself. Of course it isn’t fair. Fairness has never been in the nature of bestowing her generosity upon them. That was never the point of their lives.

“Hey, Bucky?” Steve said, as they head toward the doors, back to their apartment again. Bucky looks up at him, roused from his stream of thoughts. “I forgot something. Meet you back here.”

While he waits, Bucky tries to consider Steve from the distance of both of their damaged minds. If he had just met Steve today, for the first time—this new Steve who could not recall their inside jokes or the way cabbage soup tastes after three days of nothing else—what would he think? Would he still wish for nothing but Steve’s big hand twisted up in his hair when they hug?

The answer comes to him without any thought at all. Of course. Yes, a million times, yes. He wants nothing else but Steve. He wants Steve this way, and as himself, and as anybody else he could ever be.

The minutes have ticked by, and Steve has not yet returned. Bucky feels a flutter of worry stir in his stomach that something is wrong, not the same feeling as the true panic of _knowing_ that something is wrong, but a suspicious tug in a dangerous direction. He follows Steve back into the locker room and finds it echoing and empty.

“Steve?” He says. He keeps his voice casual. There might be no reason to sound an alarm yet. Bucky knows he is lying to himself. “Hey, Steve!” Bucky calls toward the showers. Nothing. His feet carry him into the gym. It is empty. Bucky’s breath comes in hurried, shallow pants. The panic begins, true and terrible. “No.” He breathes. “Come on, buddy. Asshole. Don’t do this to me.”

* * *

 

Bucky watches the surveillance tape for the third time. Steve walks right out of there like he owns the place. There is no indication of where he would go. Bucky erases the two minutes of tape that show Steve’s escape. He needs time to find Steve on his own. His hands don’t shake, nor does his forehead break out in a cold sweat as he exits the building. He is a professional, after all. He knows what he is doing. Bucky does, however, feel his heartbeat, normally so steady and dependable, accelerate and flutter at the thought that Steve could be anywhere.

“Sam.” Bucky says once the burner phone has been paid for in cash.

“This is Bucky, right?” Sam asks. “How’s it going?”

“Um, not so great. I don’t know what they have told you.”

“They haven’t.” Sam says. His voice carries a heavier weight to it now. Bucky can hear the worry, which is exactly why he called Sam. “Steve okay?” He asks.

“Yes and no. He’s not himself right now, and I am trying to track him down under the radar.”

“That sounds really bad.” Sam says. Bucky doesn’t know what to say, so he says nothing. His silence is as good an answer as any. “Okay. I can be there in a couple of hours. Will I be able to call you on this number?”

“I will hang on to the phone until you get into town.” Bucky says. He hangs up and fights the urge to toss the phone into the nearest garbage can.

In the interim between calling Sam and his arrival into town, Bucky wanders through the places he hopes Steve might be. The trouble is, there aren’t many places he can think of that might attract Steve’s subconscious. Where would his mind bring him, as blank and empty as it currently is?

He wanders, first, through the halls of the Shield building where he first brought Steve after the accident. His footsteps sound along the shiny floor with so much more surety than he feels. There is no Steve in this labyrinth of bureaucracy. He knew this before he entered, but Bucky needed something to do.

Next, he considers the endless web of subway tunnels that connect the city. It would be easy to hop on one train and find himself lost in the chaos down there for days, without surfacing and without finding Steve. He reconsiders. He can’t imagine Steve going there without a plan.

Eventually, Bucky feels the vibration of the phone in his pocket. He holds it in his right hand, not trusting himself not to crush it with his left.

“You in town?” He asks.

“Just arrived.” Sam says.

“Good. I’ll come find you.” Bucky says. At least he knows where Sam is.

At the airport, Bucky allows Sam to embrace him in a short, one armed hug. They have come a long way since their brutal introduction, back when Bucky could not distinguish friend from foe. Sam is weary from the flight, and the worry that settles along his brow and shoulders. He nods, silently. They can’t talk here, but Bucky knows that he understands. They both worry about Steve as a matter of professionalism. It is what they do.

“Who knows I’m in town?” Sam asks as they walk along the street. It is dark outside, the warmth of the night has brought so many out, and they stroll along, peering into the crowds that develop outside of bars and clubs.

“Just us.” Bucky says. “Not everybody thinks that Steve can be trusted yet. Didn’t want people to start panicking. Didn’t want to make a scene.”

Sam nods.

“Hey, um. Bucky?” Sam says, with an audible set of question marks behind his words that makes Bucky’s hair stand on end. “Does that look like a scene to you?”

It is a scene, indeed. Through a wall of glass that allows for a birds-eye view of a club’s dancefloor from the street, they can see what so many else have stopped to ogle. A man, shirtless and sweaty, is dancing. He works the crowd over with the same kind of energy with which Steve fights off a room full of opponents, taking them on one at a time, two at a time. He draws them in and then moves to the next partner with a fluid brilliance that is mesmerizing.

Bucky feels the instant jolt of recognition the moment his eyes fall upon Steve. He would know him anywhere, _has_ known him anywhere. He wants to pull him out of this den, where he has certainly been spotted and recorded to be plastered all over the internet and tabloids. However, his feet won’t move. He is rooted to the spot, unable to tear his eyes away from Steve’s figure, circulating through the crowd.

“Do you want me to go get him?” Sam asks.

“Maybe we should both go.” Bucky says. Steve might try to run again, and he could use the help in containing him. Sam is a calming presence.

It takes longer than Bucky would like to get in. They are not granted the privilege of skipping to the head of the line like younger patrons with smug expressions who slip past them.

“I’m thinking we might not be dressed for this.” Sam says out of the corner of his mouth.

“I’m thinking you might be right.” Bucky replies, after they hand over an exorbitant cover fee to the bouncers and make it into the dimly lit and viciously loud club.


	5. Jealousy

They slip through the crowd, each person a jeweled fish swimming upstream through the river of lights, booze, and endless sound. It is a challenge, but Sam and Bucky find their way to a corner where they can pick Steve out from the writhing mass of bodies pressed together on the dancefloor. This is tactical hell. Bucky can’t watch his own back, let alone Sam and Steve’s.

“Relax.” Sam shouts to Bucky, his lips only inches from his ear. “You’re fine.”

Bucky forces his shoulders down and steadies himself. He knows there is no worse way to stick out in this mob of liquored up, happy people than to be the one sober stick in the mud. There was once a time when this was his scene—well, not _this_ , exactly, the dance moves have become more intimate in the seven or so decades since he was a patron of such establishments—but the idea is the same.

“Should we go in there?” Bucky asks, inclining his head toward the dancefloor.

“Only if you want. He will come out sooner or later.”

They stand between the bar and the bathrooms for twenty minutes. Steve does not emerge. Normally, Bucky could hold this place for hours. He could look comfortable and casual, make small talk with his neighbors and the bartender, and never once look out of place. Right now, however, he feels antsy and he can tell that it shows.

“I’m going in.” He tells Sam.

“Be my guest. I’ll hold down the fort.” Sam says. Bucky walks away while Sam orders a beer that they both know he won’t drink.

The crowd is oppressive from the moment he walks into it. Hot, sweaty, too close. Bucky wants to push back. He wants to fight. This is not the kind of place where he will make friends with his usual kind of combat, and so instead he relaxes into the movements, into the give and sway of their bodies. He feels his way through the weak points toward the space where he knows Steve is. This is unlike the rigid structure of any kind of dancing that Bucky has done in the past, and in a removed way, he can see the appeal.

Steve dances only a few feet away from him. He is so absorbed by his partner, a wiry brunet man who looks thoroughly pleased to be wrapped up in Steve’s arms, pressing back against him, leaning his head back and laughing. Steve is laughing, too, while he runs his hand across his dance partner’s abdomen and up his arm. The touch is familiar and brief.

Somebody stumbles into Bucky. They knock into him and move away without notice or apology. He realizes that he has stopped dancing. He can hardly move while he watches Steve dance ( _with somebody else_ , a small voice interjects inside his head) he shakes the thought off and focuses instead on keeping an eye on Steve and trying to stay flexible.

When their eyes finally meet, Bucky wishes it were with some kind of fantastical electric charge. Instead, he feels, more than sees, Steve spot him through the crowd from over the shoulder of a man with whom he is dancing in the closest of ways.

Steve’s mouth is open, gasping for breath, while sweat trickles down his face from his temples, and the dim lighting of the club casts his profile into silhouette in a way that will last in Bucky’s mind forever. This is a snapshot of Steve’s face that Bucky has seen before. He keeps the image locked away in his mind, captured from their private moments together. Now he shares this side of Steve with whomever happened to glance over at him in that second—especially the man with whom Steve dances. 

Steve shrugs as if to say “What are you going to do?”

 

The night air comes as a blessed relief to all of them when they climb out onto the sidewalk again. Bucky’s ears buzz from the residual cacophony of the club and the rage that rings between them. He clenches his jaw to keep from spewing all of his anger at Steve’s feet. He doesn’t even know why it all bubbles up and boils over so quickly. All he knows is deep breaths in through his nose and out through his mouth while he counts to ten, twenty, one hundred, over and over.

“Hey.” Steve says to Sam, sticking his hand out in Sam’s direction.

“Hey Steve. I’m going to do us both the favor of letting you know we’re friends and you don’t have to introduce yourself. My name is Sam, though, since you’re wondering.” Sam says instead of taking Steve’s hand. Sam puts his arm around Steve’s shoulder in a casual way and leads him away from Bucky, speaking low under his voice. Bucky walks a few paces behind them, seething.

 

* * *

 

Bucky wakes on the couch the next morning with a twinge in his shoulder. Steve is already at the coffee maker, his back to Bucky, humming a tune that Bucky’s foggy mind doesn’t catch right away.

“Good morning.” Steve says, turning around to place a coffee down next to Bucky. “I don’t know how you take it.” He glances down at the cup.

“One sugar.”

“Oh, right.” Steve says, already in the kitchen, searching for the sugar bowl. Bucky feels the last traces of anger dissipate. He can’t stay mad at Steve. This is no different than every other time Steve disappeared during their childhoods, during the war, during all the time that they spent together. Unknowing, and without the desire to prove himself, this act of rebellion was a step toward recovery. Steve returns with the small ceramic sugar bowl.

“We have a meeting at oh-nine-hundred.” Steve says.

“Since when?” Bucky asks. This is news.

“I called for it last night after you went to bed.” Steve says, and says no more.

It feels good, in a way to see that Steve had a plan and he executed it. Bucky knows what to do, and it was all orchestrated by Steve. There is some order to the universe again. So why, he wonders in a hollow way that echoes from the worst parts of his mind, does he feel that sinking, floating, detachment that happens right before trouble hits? Bucky shakes his head. He needs to be present today.

Director Phil Coulson personally greets them when they enter his office. Bucky tries not to think of the significance of that.

“Good afternoon, gentlemen.” The Director says, with a curt smile. He shakes both of their hands in turn. He looks different than he did when he saw Bucky at the training facility. He had been in Agent-mode then, ready for action. Today, he is in a formal capacity. It is a different animal entirely.

Natasha Romanov follows suit. She enters the meeting late, but Bucky understands her methods. She arrived before them and met with the Director first. She is always a step ahead. He smiles at her against his better judgement.

“Alright, Steve?” She asks.

“Hey Natasha.” Steve says.

“Let’s get down to brass tacks.” Coulson says, seated at his desk with his hands folded before him. “Steve, you said on the phone that something happened last night which made you uncomfortable. Would you care to elaborate?”

Bucky feels his heart sink all the way to the souls of his shoes. Is this because he called Sam? Is it because he searched for Steve when he went missing? He had to. Anybody would have done the same. He can feel his palms go slick with sweat, something he has rarely felt in his life. Steve is speaking with feigned nonchalance.

“It’s just, I think that Bucky is a little more old fashioned than I am in some of his views. If I am to live with somebody during my rehabilitation, I don’t think we are compatible.”

“Did something happen?” Natasha asks. Her words are for Steve, but her eyes are locked directly on Bucky.

“Yes.” Steve says. Bucky feels his throat constrict. Breathing is harder than it has ever been. Steve is still speaking, though, so he listens to every word. “I violated the terms of my agreement with you, director. I apologize and will accept whatever discipline you think is fair. I went dancing last night. Bucky found me with a man and his reaction was extreme.”

“He was upset?” Coulson clarifies.

“Very.” Steve says.

“Because you were dancing with a man?”

“Provocatively, sir.” Steve states.

Bucky tries not to look at Natasha. This has taken a turn for the absurd in a way that he never could have predicted. Provocative? If Steve wants Provocative, Bucky has stories from Germany 1944 that would make his toes curl. If Steve wants Provocative, he has a bedside drawer at his disposal anytime. Steve and his little dance at a club has not scratched the surface of Provocative.

Bucky laughs. It comes out of him the way a scream might, uncontrollable and without pause. He laughs because it is the only thing he can do and he cannot do anything else. Natasha’s hands encircle his shoulders and lift him out of his chair. He is doubled over, hunched into himself as he makes it to the hallway, away from Steve, still laughing.  


Steve leaves the meeting with Natasha, his new handler. Bucky keeps laughing although he finds nothing about this funny at all.


	6. And Man Must Have His Mate

Bucky flings himself onto the couch when he arrives back at the apartment. He is too exhausted to greet Sam, and the words don’t want to form in his mouth. What can he say? I lost Steve? He knows exactly where Steve is—safe, cared for. He will be fine. Natasha has been a good friend to him in the past, and Bucky trusts her as much as he trusts anybody, which is not a lot by most standards, but there are only so many personal shortcomings he can examine in the moment. 

“Okay, what happened?” Sam asks. He moves into the narrow cone of Bucky’s vision and forces eye contact.

The honest truth is that Steve bailed. Bucky doesn’t say that. Instead, he tells Sam about the meeting, in all its excruciating, clinical detail.

“Provocative, huh?” Sam askes, holding back a smile. Bucky can see it in his eyes.

“He doesn’t know.” Bucky says.

“About you two.”

“Yeah. I didn’t want him to think I had any expectations. We never made it _official,_ official. Steve and I were just sort of always together. When we were kids it was just something that happened, and then it was the war, and then I don’t know. We never had time to talk about it. We were only just getting comfortable again.”

Sam sits across from Bucky in silence with his chin in his hand while Bucky speaks, occasionally nodding in understanding. He remains frozen with the same expression when Bucky finishes.

“What?” Bucky asks, defiance creeping into his tone.

“Nothing. Just don’t think you’ve said that many words to me together since I met you. Wasn’t expecting you to open up like that. It’s good, man. Good for you.” Sam says.

“Fuck off.” Bucky leans back into the cushions and rubs his eyes.

“I mean it though. If you’re not going to talk to Steve—you should, by the way—I’m glad you’re saying it to somebody.”

“You kidding?” Bucky asks.

“Hell no. Keep stuff like that bottled up, you end up exploding.”

Bucky gives a noncommittal nod. He knows about explosive responses and being the guy nobody wants to set off. He doesn’t want to be that guy again, especially now that Steve is not here to watch out for him, to talk him down.

“So what are you going to do?” Sam asks. Bucky shrugs.

 

* * *

 

He arrives at the training facility with Sam the next morning. Their entry is not barred, nor does their presence raise any eyebrows. They are Avengers, after all. Sam watches with him from the observation room while Steve and Natasha work on his hand to hand combat. Bucky knows, because he knows Natasha and Steve, and because he can see the sweat drenching Steve’s shirt, that they have been here for hours already.

When they stop for a break, it is at Natasha’s insistence.

“I can keep going.” Steve says. Bucky hears his voice through the speakers that connect this room to that.

“Well, I can’t.” Natasha says. “Just.” She takes a drink of water. “Just chill out for a minute.”

She rounds the corner into the observation room a moment later.

“What are you doing here?” Natasha demands, staring daggers at Bucky.

“Hey Nat. Nice to see you too.” Sam says, leaning back and crossing his hands over his chest.

“Hey Sam. Good to see you.” She tosses the words toward him with a tight smile. She means it, or she wouldn’t say it, not to Sam, but this is not the time for a reunion. “What are you trying to do right now, Bucky?” She demands.

“Look.” Bucky says, hands up, unarmed. “You’re responsible for Steve. I understand.”

“I’m his friend.” Natasha clarifies.

“Yes,” Bucky agrees. “but I’m worried about him. I need to keep an eye on him.”

Bucky watches Natasha’s hands tense, the delicate muscles there, so full of power. He is aware of what she is capable of, and with the full power of Shield behind her, he is already calculating what a difficult time he will have should he need to carve his own path in helping Steve. Bucky hopes it won’t come to that. What he does not anticipate is Natasha’s heavy sigh, and the way her shoulders to slump toward to floor.

“I know.” She says. “He needs you to keep an eye on him. He just doesn’t understand. Don’t you dare tell him I told you this, but It is too big a job for one person—Even me.”

“I’m not sure I believe that.” Sam says.

“He’s not sleeping.” Natasha says. “Did you report that?” She asks Bucky.

Bucky’s thoughts immediately turn, in vivid technicolor, to the night that he spent in Steve’s arms, tucked against his chest which rose and fell in the sure, even rhythmic breaths of a deep slumber. He slept soundly for seven hours, give or take that night. Bucky knows because he slept just as well and for just as long. A rare enough occurrence.

“No.” Bucky says, and leaves it at that.

“What happened?” Natasha askes. “Don’t tell me you turned into a bigot all of a sudden. I know that’s not it.”

“That’s just it.” Bucky says. “I don’t know what happened. Things were fine. Maybe I should have given him more space.”

“It has to be hard. He is going through a lot right now. Trying to figure out who he is, what all of his relationships mean. No wonder he is pushing his boundaries, trying to figure out where those boundaries are—“ Sam looks up from the space toward the floor, his eyes narrowing back into focus as they meet Bucky’s. “And that’s my cue to stop psychoanalyzing my friends. I promised myself I wasn’t getting into this shit. Don’t you two have a therapist?”

“Yeah. Natasha, can you talk to Steve about maybe checking in with Dr. Garner, sooner rather than later?”

“I’ll put the bug in his ear,” Natasha says, “but you know he won’t do anything unless he believes the idea is his own.”

“I trust you to make it happen.”

“I just don’t understand why you can’t tell him about—“

“No.” Bucky interrupts Natasha. If asked, he couldn’t say why he feels the fire burning so strongly underneath his words, all he knows is a terrible fear that Steve’s personality might have changed down to the very core.

Perhaps what they had together was never more than a series of circumstances. Perhaps it built up over their decades together. Perhaps Steve never felt more than brotherly affection for him, but it was warped by the years of desperation, deprivation, or his own unique blend of loyalty and desire and things that cannot be put into words. Bucky fears that it cannot be remade the same way, and so he cannot say these things aloud, especially not to Steve.

“I just don’t understand.” Natasha says. “You two were so close—“

“Natasha. No.” Bucky says.

He wonders, briefly, if this was how Steve felt back when Bucky was lost in the woods of his own recovery, unable bear reminders of their past for fear that it would trigger something terrible in him. For a moment, he thinks his mind is playing tricks on him. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Steve’s face.

A second glance tells him that he was not mistaken. Steve is ducking out of his line of vision, not as quickly as he would if he were up to his usual standard. Bucky hurls himself through the doorway and pounces. He realizes, as he pins Steve to the wall, wide eyed with a simpler kind of guilt than Bucky expects, that this may not be the best way to win back Steve’s trust. His hands hold Steve still by the shoulders. Steve could break free if he wanted, Bucky knows.

“You were eavesdropping.” Bucky says.

“You were talking about me.” Steve replies.

From this close, Bucky can see every pore on Steve’s nose. He can make out the freckles in Steve’s eyes, like ripples of darkening blue radiating out from his pupils. He watches Steve’s lips part as his jaw relaxes and eyebrows raise. There is a question on his lips that goes unspoken. Bucky wants to answer it, he feels compelled to say something, to do something. Bucky is drawn in by this man, just as he always has been. A slow exhalation carries him forward, eyes downcast toward Steve’s lips, and then—

“Bucky, let him go.” Natasha says it like one scolding a dog who has run off with a toy that is not theirs. Bucky backs away and drops his hands to his sides. Steve shakes his head and blinks rapidly.

“Steve,” Natasha commands. “Stay.” Steve stands down, all traces of the desire to run smothered.

She glides toward them, one foot in front of the other, with an ere of calm that belies the ocean of awe-inspiring fury that seethes just beneath that shell. She keeps walking down the hall, and Bucky sneaks a peek at Steve out of the corner of his eye. It is clear that they have no choice but to follow her.

They reach an office. Bucky does not remember seeing the inside of it before, and he realizes with a drop of his heart that Steve won’t either, even if he comes here all the time. Natasha shuts the door with a resounding thud, like the last nail in their coffin.

“Alright.” She says, one eyebrow arches in a delicate streak skyward. A warning sign. “We’re done with this. You are big boys and you can start acting like it. Have a seat.” They sit, in unison. “Bucky Barnes, do you have something to say to Steve?”

Bucky looks up at Natasha, her hands placed on her hips, chin jutted out, expectant. Then he turns to see Steve, who looks just as puzzled as he knows he must.

“Uh,” Bucky says, “Sorry I pushed you?” He guesses.

Natasha heaves a heavy sigh and throws herself down into the couch opposite them.

“Nope. Not where I was going with this. Bucky, I don’t know why you won’t come out with it and tell Steve what was going on between the two of you, whether it is some undue sense of pride, or shame, but whatever it is, you need to get over it. I am not going to sit around and watch you two dance around each other like a couple of twelve year olds at a middle school dance. So. Bucky. What have you got to say to Steve?”

Bucky’s throat goes dry. He feels compelled to speak now, just as all capacity for speech abandons his body. What can he say? Steve’s eyes meet his and he sees the question rise up again.

“Okay.” Bucky says. He doesn’t know what the next words out of his mouth will be. “Steve,” he takes a breath. “You and I are lovers.”

He cringes inwardly at the wording, but there is nothing more factually accurate that he could have said. It is what they have been for so long, without any further label that they simply fell into the routine of it. They never called it anything.

“Really?” Steve says. Bucky knows the sound of approval in his voice, and that look in his eye.

“Yeah. For about…” Bucky calculates the actual number of years and reconsiders that revelation. “Since we were kids.”

“Oh thank God.” Steve says. He is out of his own chair and into Bucky’s before Bucky has time to think. His arms catch Steve, and lips greet lips like coming home.

“So, you don’t mind?” Bucky asks, once they part.

“Mind?” Steve asks, looking down at Bucky, his hands tangled in Bucky’s hair. “Who could mind this?”

Natasha clears her throat just loudly enough that they notice. Steve extracts himself from Bucky’s grasp and stands, and Bucky follows suit.

“Better?” She asks.

“Thank you.” Bucky says. His face is at least four different shades of pink from embarrassment and Steve’s proximity and the overwhelming relief of having finished with this mess.

Natasha flicks her hand at them as if to shoo them out. She has other things to do.


	7. It's Still The Same Old Story

“So, lovers, huh?” Steve asks when they arrive back at their apartment.

“To be honest, I have never been a fan of that phrase.”

“Boyfriends, then?”

“Ugh, even worse.” Bucky throws his head back and rolls his eyes.

“Then what? You didn’t seem to have a problem when I kissed you.” Steve says.

“I definitely didn’t mind that.” Bucky follows Steve into their new normal seats on the couch, happier than he would like to admit to see Steve sitting there, surrounded by their things. “We never talked about it, that’s all.”

“Was it a secret?” Steve asks. “Was I your secret?” He looks up at Bucky from under his eyelashes, and Bucky feels something flip over inside his stomach. He reaches out for Steve’s hand and draws him in.

“I don’t think I have ever been able to keep how I feel about you a secret. Your ma knew about it before either of us, back when we were both altar boys at St. Agnes and the biggest thing we had to worry about was getting into fights in our Sunday clothes. She was always better to me than my own family. They had too many mouths to feed as it was.”

“My ma?” Steve asks. Bucky nods. “What was her name?”

“Sarah.” Bucky tells him. His eyes swim for a moment before he blinks the tears back. He has cried for her before, but now is not the time. Steve does not respond, so Bucky keeps talking.

“And then, at school, the nuns wouldn’t let us speak to each other because we were always causing trouble. When we got older, that trouble got a little more, you know…” Bucky’s eyebrows raise of their own volition, “troublesome.”

It makes Steve laugh, not because he remembers, but because he can imagine. He nods, encouraging Bucky to go on. Their fingers remain intertwined, relaxed between them on the couch. Steve rubs the back of Bucky’s hand with his thumb and the sensation of it makes Bucky feel like he could jump out of his skin. There is a crazed energy in him for Steve. He channels it into his words to give it somewhere to go.

“You were always getting into fights. That’s a fair way to put it. Fairer than the fights and fairer than I ought to put it. Truth is, you were always getting yourself beat up for running your mouth. Sometimes I was around to save your ass, and sometimes I was there to pick you up off the sidewalk. You didn’t always used to be so…” Bucky glances at Steve from the corner of his eye. “Big.” He says eventually, unable to explain it.

A look comes over Steve, between his raised eyebrows and parted lips, it might be misinterpreted for disbelief by somebody who hasn’t known Steve for most of their life, but Bucky understands. Steve is putting every ounce of energy he has into holding still. Despite this, Steve’s fingers tighten around Bucky’s. 

“I thought it couldn’t have been real.” Steve says. Bucky’s heart pounds in his chest.

“Tell me.”

“It was raining. I was coughing and it hurt, not like this body feels things. It was like a memory. Bucky, it scares me just to think about it. One round of coughing ended and another one started up, it was like I couldn’t breathe. Felt like I would never breathe again, you know?” Steve shakes his head. “I guess not.” He goes on looking away. His words become harsher as he speaks, his accent picks up something of its grittier texture, lost and smoothed away during Steve's years in the future—Bucky still thinks of this as the future, no matter how many times he tells himself there is no going back.

“And then I know that’s not the worst part.” Steve goes on. “It’s not the coughing, the cold, or even how much everything hurts. It’s knowing how much somebody is going to worry.” He meets Bucky’s gaze and Bucky feels it like a bullet. “You, I guess.”

Bucky pulls Steve into his arms, gathers him up like he used to when Steve was a bag of bones and sinew, and holds him there with no words because the words would only get in the way. Of course he worried, yes. Worried like his life depended on it, because in an inexpressible, terrible way it did. There would have been no going on without Steve. He never said that he was glad he got called up, the first time he was pulled from his life and shipped like a crate of vegetables to an army base. But there was a part of Bucky that breathed a sigh of relief all those years ago, because he might go first, and that was a mercy.

Bucky does not say these things. Steve feels them anyway. 

Bucky holds on to Steve, and he wonders if Steve feels that electric charge between them, if it resonates within him so hard he feels like he might as well be rattling with it. Bucky wants to know if Steve would let him act upon that urge, the one that settles in his fingertips and upon his lips. He knows the answer is yes, resounding across decades. Not now, though. To do so now would be to cheapen this moment. There is no demand on either of them, for the first time in the longest time.

Bucky feels Steve slip from his grasp and into a sleep that is as peaceful as Steve ever sees. He takes this for a sign and extracts himself, as difficult as that is, with Steve’s warmth and weight above him.

A floor away, Bucky encounters a different memory. The baby grand piano sits with a thick layer of dust across the closed fallboard in Bucky’s study. It is a finer beast, certainly, than the one the Barnes family kept, that clunked and clanged like falling down a flight of stairs whenever his mother forced him to practice after school or before church. He resented their piano. It took him away from Steve, or stickball, or swing dancing. This one, however, makes him feel something.

A shiver runs through him, from his mismatched fingertips upward, as he stretches his hands out and takes a seat on the piano bench, back straight. He reveals the keys, shiny and smooth, and sets his hands down, just so. He plays Chopin’s nocturne in C sharp minor by ear.

It was as Mrs. Wiseman used to scold him in her good natured way, back when his mother traded lessons for laundry. _I heard it, but I didn’t believe it._ Bucky had an uncanny ability to fake things so well that people believed he planned them. That was never the case with Steve, who was the only thing he did not have to pretend at.

He plays on and lets his mind wander. The floorboards creak outside of the door, and his hands stall on the keys.

“No,” Steve said as he slipped inside, “please keep playing.” Bucky pressed on, with Steve standing at his side, like they sometimes used to do. He changes to a familiar melody. Something easier to listen to, more accessible.

“You must remember this, a kiss is just a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh,” Bucky sings to him. Steve’s features fall into an easy grin. The rest of the song spills from Bucky’s fingertips and his lips, as easy as breathing.

Steve and Bucky were already on the continent when Casablanca came out in theatres in the U.S., but they heard the single over the radio over and over, enough times for it to sink its way into their minds and become their song in a private and quiet way. Bucky remembers the way Steve would glance up at him when it played, full of static and holes, through the speakers of the radio in the bunker during the precious hours of time they had for listening. Steve doesn’t remember that, Bucky knows. And then…

“It’s still the same old story, a fight for love and glory, a case of do or die,” Steve’s voice joins his. It startles him, nearly out of playing, but he is loath to break the spell of memory that the song has cast for them both.

“The world will always welcome lovers as time goes by.” Bucky finishes the song with Steve, in harmony, because he is a sap like that.

The smile dies on Bucky’s face. He wishes he could pretend that he didn’t hear the doorbell ring. For a moment, he considers it: Maybe he and Steve can sneak out through the window and onto the rooftop. That would be ridiculous, he knows, and they wouldn’t make it half-way down the block before somebody tracked them down. No matter what nice stories they like to tell themselves at night, neither of them are free.

“You planning on getting that, or should I?” Steve asks. The question is so quintessentially _Steve_ that Bucky sighs, shakes his head, and rises.

He is blindsided at the door by Sam, Natasha, and at least twelve Shield agents in full gear.

“What?” He asks, slow on the uptake. “What’s—Nat. Sam. Did something happen?”

“We need to talk about it inside.” Natasha says, with the look on her face that Bucky has come to understand he cannot argue with. He nods without question and steps aside to allow the stampede of people into his living room. The agents take up their places at his windows, the back door, any vulnerable spots. “Where’s Steve?” Natasha asks, looking around with a calculated expression of distant calm.

“Here.” Steve says from the staircase. “Bucky, what’s going on?” He asks.

“I’ll tell you when I know.” Bucky says, looking at Sam and Natasha. “Steve’s study.” He says to all of them, when he sees them look to him for direction. He leads the way, feeling the discomfort of the role of leader. He should be following Steve, not the other way around.

Steve sits on the edge of his seat when they arrive and Bucky shuts the door between them and another two Shield agents.

“Bucky, is this line still secure?” Natasha asks, connecting the screen to a channel that he hadn’t known existed until this moment. He looks at her in bewilderment, before the realization hits him. This is Steve’s study. This line out was for Steve’s use. During Bucky’s recovery. Natasha realizes her faux pas at the same moment. The tightening of her lips is the only giveaway. He shrugs and turns to face Agent Coulson who looks distracted, as if he has just hung up on a different conversation on some other secret line in somebody else’s office.

“Alright, good. You’re all there. Sam, Natasha, any updates since we spoke?”

“No, sir.” Natasha replies.

“Good. Cap, Bucky, I apologize for bringing you in like this. I would have liked to make it a smoother transition. We have word that there was an attack on civilians using similar tech that caused the amnesia that the Captain has been experiencing and we need to get this contained ASAP.”

“Sir, with all due respect, can we risk exposing Cap to more of whatever this is? He is still recovering.” From the damage I let happen. Bucky doesn’t let himself finish that sentence.

“That’s my call to make.” Coulson responds to Bucky respectfully but firmly. “Cap, how do you feel about going back into the field? Widow tells me you’ve been training pretty hard. Think you can handle this?”

“I’m ready, sir.”

“Good. Two teams. Widow, you and Falcon. Bucky you’re with Cap. You take the men you’ve got with you now for backup. Anything happens, rescue who you can and get out. This is to be treated as a threat of bioterrorism. Understood?”

“Yes, sir.” They say in unison. The line goes dead.

Bucky’s eyes meet Steve’s through the gloom of the study and he is _smiling_. That bastard.


	8. A Fight for Love and Glory

They arrive on the scene, a hospital which is brimming with panic and chaos. Police circle the mess, trying to keep the situation under control with their hands on their guns. Bucky can’t help but roll his eyes at them. They won’t be any help to him at all. He and Steve slip through the crush of people and the disorganization as if they were made to do it, and indeed, they were. This is what they are for, whether they know it or not.

Inside, the hallways are desolate. He delights in the way the traction of his boots grips the tile floors, the way the florescent lights flicker above them, casting an evil spell across the place, and how, just for a second, he sees a familiar glint in Steve’s eye. This is their element.

They step soundlessly around corners. In the cafeteria, a mass of people huddle together. Bucky knows this scene. The hairstyles and the clothing may change from decade to decade, but the looks on their faces do not. He shakes his head _like cattle_ , he thinks, only for a moment, but with merciless venom in his mind. He regrets it immediately. That was not his thought, not his true thought. He remembers their faces then, every one that he cannot forget, made clear and impossible to avoid under the blinding light of memory. There will be a time to remember the others later, he can get these people out now. He breaks the door down.

It happens in a blinding flash of blue light. There was nothing that could have been done. _It ends like it began_ , Bucky thinks. _I fucked up._

But when the light recedes, and Bucky blinks himself right again, he is still standing, metal fist clenched, and ready for whatever comes next. He looks to his left and sees Steve, looking at him with confusion in the crease between his eyebrows.

“Bucky?” Steve asks. Bucky feels less steady at this, but this is not the time to show it.

Bucky smiles at Steve, just the way he always has when everything is good, fine, just the way it should be.

“Yeah, Stevie. Who else would it be?” He asks, with a nod of his head. What he means is _Not now._ What he means is _This isn’t the time._

“You’re okay. Good. I thought—“ Steve breathes for a second, looks around. The attackers are nowhere in sight. He sighs in a way that Bucky remembers.

It makes him think of how, when they were young boys, the mothers in their neighborhood used to run out into the road when their children fell down and look them over to assess them for damage. If their beloved child was not injured, they would invariably follow the same routine: the look—the _don’t you ever do that to me again_ look, followed by a short smack, often to the cheek, or the arm, or the bottom, whatever body part was not injured. The child was then tugged inside, sometimes after a hug, depending on the leniency of the mother and the age of the child.

Right now, Steve has the _don’t you ever do that to me again_ look all over his face. Bucky braces for whatever comes next, and Steve delivers the slap, though not the way he is prepared for it.

“Jerk.” Steve says, with a kindness to his voice, the way he must have said it a million times before.

“You’re a punk.” Bucky replies, automatically, although he hardly believes there is air left in his lungs.

The following fight is hardly a blip on Bucky’s radar. Some guys get punched. They help a few people evacuate to safety. A few more guys get punched. At the end of it all, the ringing sound of Steve’s voice, all serious weight and sonorous tone returned, is the only thing that Bucky can think about.

He pulls Steve into a janitor’s closet the moment they are no longer needed. They hardly fit, between the bulk of their shoulders and the supplies that line the walls from floor to ceiling. Steve’s breath still smells like Bucky’s toothpaste. He can’t help but feel the muscles of Steve’s chest against the back of his hands, still clutched in the fabric of his shirt. He couldn’t let go if he wanted to.

“You remember?” Bucky asks. His mouth is dry and the words make a tacky layer of sound and hope in it. They hardly sound like real words.

“Every moment.” Steve says. Bucky wishes the words did not cause him a second’s heart ache. There is a moment, deep down, that he wishes he could dismiss, which longs for Steve to forget him—the Winter Solider. Steve sees the hesitation in Bucky’s face. “There is not a single second I would want to forget.”

Steve takes Bucky’s face in his hands, one on either side of his jaw, and brings them together slowly, gently. This kiss is unlike Steve’s kisses, usually so rushed for time. He kissed like he still had something to prove. Now he kisses Bucky as if he wants to remember every tick of the clock as their lips press against each other. Bucky has not yet let go of Steve’s shirt and he finds he does not want to. He does not want to let go of Steve at all for fear that the moment he does, he will lose this new Steve and a whole new version of the man will take his place. It seems to be the trend.

They part, and Bucky is stunned into silence, still gaping at Steve who smiles before him. There is nothing to say, it has all been said and they both remember the conversations. Steve nods to Bucky, who returns it, along with his own kiss. This one is harder, full of more desperation, passion. He needs this from Steve. He has needed it for so long now.

“Tell me. Again, please.” Bucky says against Steve’s lips.

“I remember.” Steve says. “You’ve got me, pal. Sealed with a kiss, okay?” Bucky nods, forehead pressed to forehead.

The good news does not surprise the rest of the team the way it surprised Bucky. He gets the distinct impression that he was not informed about something. Perhaps the chance of success of the mission, maybe the risk of failure. Whatever the case, the look of relief that sweeps through their party is shared by all, if not as overwhelmingly as Bucky wears it.

“Glad to have you back, Cap.” Director Coulson says as he makes his way through the dismantled hospital. “And you say the perps left the device?”

“Forgot why they were there.” Bucky answers.

“Well, thank goodness for small favors, I suppose.”

“Sir,” Steve begins. “I know I should be quarantined by medical tonight, but I was hoping.” He glances meaningfully at Bucky, then raises an optimistic eye to the Director. Trust Steve to play right into Coulson’s weak spot. He can hardly deny Captain America anything, especially after a trauma.

“Fine.” Coulson says, after a moment’s deliberation. “Debrief with the team, then you may take a short leave. Tomorrow, I expect you to report to medical at 0800, sharp, Captain.”

“Understood. Thank you, sir.” Steve says.

 

“You’re doing better, since I’ve been away.” Steve says as they arrive back at their house. His smile comes easier now, his step is lighter.

“You haven’t been away, you have been right here.” Bucky says.

“We both know that’s not quite true.” Steve says. They are in the door now, and Bucky feels his breath come in shallow bursts. Steve is right. He was present, but not here, not in all the ways that counted.

“Do you remember dancing?” Bucky asks, partly to relieve the tension that grows in the air between them, partly because he really wants to know if Steve remembers the way he moved his hips when he was free from the burden of caring what the world thought of him. It had been a sight.

Steve blushes a shade of pink that Bucky loves. He missed that—the way he hangs his head, looks at the floor for a moment as if he can’t stand to meet Bucky’s eyes, and then forces himself to do it anyway. Yes, that’s Steve all over. Bucky could sing. Steve throws himself into the corner seat of the couch, splayed out, head back, and lets out a groan.

“Ugh! Yes. I remember that. Let’s never speak of it again, shall we?” Steve says. The blush has crept down his neck. Bucky’s can’t help the laughter that spills from him. He feels for Steve. He can only imagine that Steve feels as if he has awoken from a many-night bender. The difference is that he had a whole team of people making sure that, for the most part, he did not run off and do anything too permanent or embarrassing. The worst that Steve did during these days of memory loss was work out a lot.

“What are you thinking about?” Steve asks Bucky as he catches the way his eyes glaze over.

“You’re so… good.” Bucky says with wonder in his voice. “Even when you’re not yourself, you’re always this perfect specimen of upstanding _goodness_.” He looks Steve up and down before leaning in nearly all the way to his lips. “It’s infuriating.” He says in a voice that is almost a growl as he bites down on Steve’s bottom lip.

“I infuriate you?” Steve says after a kiss that proves just that. “Why?” Bucky laughs again, so Steve does too. A moment’s silence falls between them. “No, tell me.” Steve says. “What did I do?”

Bucky’s eyebrows draw together. He pulls away from Steve to look him over. He is sincere, kind in his train of questioning. It makes Bucky wonder for a moment.

“Steve, where did we just come from?” Bucky asks, just to check.

“We were just with Coulson and Nat.” Steve says, as if it is obvious. Bucky breathes a deep sigh of relief and leans back in to kiss him. He can never be too careful. “You’re not still mad about the parachute thing, are you?” Steve asks. “I told you, I’ll start using them.”

Bucky backs away again and shakes his head.

“No. I’m not mad about—well, yes, a little. You should always have been using a parachute, but that’s not what—okay that’s not it.” It makes Steve laugh, which makes Bucky break and smile. “Steve,” he says, back on track with the smile locked away for later, “Where is Sam right now?”

“Sam?”

“Yeah.” Bucky says. “When did you last see him?”

“He’s…” Steve begins, laden with suspicion, “In DC. We just talked to him yesterday.” Bucky’s heart plummets to the floor. “He _is_ in DC, right?” Steve asks, sitting up, every muscle tensed and ready to spring into action. Bucky follows Steve’s line of vision directly to his shield.

“No.” Bucky says. “He’s fine, though. He’s in town.”

“Okay, let’s go see him.” Steve says. Bucky is sure that nothing will assuage the panicked surety that Steve feels that something is wrong with Sam. Steve is not well, Bucky knows. He needs to get him to medical tonight, not tomorrow.

“Right.” He says, “Let’s do that. I’ll give Sam a call and let him know we are heading over.”

“Cool.” Steve says. As he stands, Bucky notices a faint unevenness to Steve’s posture that he could swear is just a memory these days. He tries to put it out of his mind until the coughing begins.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for waiting on this chapter. The delay was due to the beginning of my new, seasonally appropriate Stucky Ghost story "The Soul That You Used"  
> If you dig explicit ghost sex and stories about online dating, do go read it.


	9. A Case of Do or Die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story was originally intended to be a drabble to get me out of a writer's block funk. Little did I know it would go on to be one of my favorite fics I have written.   
> Big thanks again to theredstarofjustice for inspiring it and to KingSirahk for geeking out with me.   
> As always, thank you for reading.

“Why is Sam in medical?” Steve asks, with a tone of worry that edges closer and closer to the frantic as he and Bucky exit the elevator.

“He is fine.” Bucky promises. He is speaking, he knows, to himself. He is speaking about Steve as he tries not to listen to the wheezing breaths that Steve takes as he makes his way down the hallway next to him. “Don’t worry.” Bucky chants, looking Steve over and slowing his steps. “Nothing to worry about.” It is an old rhythm, one Bucky never hoped to fall back into.

“You sure?” Steve asks, meeting his eyes. Their conversation has taken a turn, they both know. They can see it in each other’s eyes, though some things do not need to be spoken aloud.

“I hope so.” Bucky tells him.

“Captain Rogers.” Doctor Simmons says, welcoming them into the lab. They can see a pair of pink pajamas protruding from beneath her lab coat, but her eyes are bright and everything about her posture speaks of the kind of alertness and professionalism that Bucky has come to expect from Coulson’s team. “Please come with me for a moment.” She asks.

Bucky tags along. There might once have been a time when he would have been content to wait in the hallway, unsure if he was allowed inside. That time is over now. The Army, The Nazis and his own death had not stopped Steve Rogers from getting to Bucky. The way he sees it now, he owes Steve the same devotion. He holds Steve’s hand while he sits on the examination table and doesn’t care who notices.

“Alright, what’s going on?” Steve asks Bucky after another bout of coughing shakes his body from head to toe for minutes at a time. “This isn’t about Sam, is it?”

“Wondered when you would admit it.” Bucky says, shaking his head with an old, familiar smile on his face. “I don’t know what’s happening, pal, but there is something going on with your head.”

“What?” Steve asks, “More than usual?”

“Remember that time you got a fever so bad you started hallucinating?”

“I thought we said we were never going to talk about that one.” Steve says, his face screwed up in a sour, pinched expression half way between embarrassment and nostalgia.

They can both recall it, though not with the same degree of fondness. It was not the first or the last time Steve had been so sick they thought they might need to call the priest for him. Before he made it out of the woods, while Bucky kept a watchful eye over him every day after school, spooning chicken broth down his throat and bringing him cool rags for his wrists, Steve mumbled some words about believing Bucky was an angel. He later denied it as fiercely as he could. It is the only memory of Steve being sick that Bucky doesn’t wish he could scrub from his own brain.

Steve rubs little circles on the back of Bucky’s hand.

“Don’t do that.” Bucky says to Steve. He tries to keep his tone calm, but the way Steve’s eyes flit meet his tells him that he failed.

“Do what?” Steve asks.

“Don’t comfort me.” Bucky says. “I’m not the one who needs it.”

Steve shakes his head and continues to move his thumb across the small landscape of Bucky’s hand, the ridges and valleys that relax at his touch. He proves Bucky wrong, wordlessly and in the most meaningful ways.

“Alright,” Dr. Simmons says, finally turning back to them from her screen. “The Director is on his way in to see you, Captain. In the meantime, I have been asked to do a full blood panel and micro—“She stops herself and winces. “I have been told I am a touch overbearing when I start in with medical terminology.” 

Steve laughs and waves his hand. “I know the drill.” He says. “I give consent for any tests you need to do to figure out what is wrong with me.”

“Thank you, Sir.” She says with a grateful smile.

Bucky takes a deep breath in through his nose and exhales slowly through his mouth. He can perform surgeries in the field with the best of them when he needs to, but watching in the lab when somebody gets needles out still pulls at something buried deep in his psyche. It makes him feel wrong, ripped apart. He scratches absently at his forearm.

Dr. Simmons takes vial after vial of Steve’s blood. The look on Steve’s face is one of pure serenity. He could do this professionally. In a way, Bucky muses, Steve does.

Sam, Natasha, and Coulson all arrive at the same time, with similar expressions glazed over with sleep. Coulson wears pajamas that Bucky cannot help but notice are striped with red and blue. He wonders, only for a moment, if he bought them himself, or if they were a gift. He snaps back when Coulson puts his hand on Bucky’s shoulder in a manner that feels more like a friend than a boss.

“Will you come with me for a minute, Bucky?” He asks.

“We’ll keep an eye on this one.” Sam says, casting a look in Steve’s direction. “Make sure he doesn’t get into too much more trouble.”

“I’m not making any promises.” Natasha says. Bucky rises, feeling like he should be less graceful on his feet than he is, and makes his way out into a common area with Coulson.

From the way Coulson looks at Bucky, he gets the picture that something is deeply, terribly wrong. It settles in the pit of his stomach like a bag of sand. Sometimes, Bucky wishes that Coulson were less kind. He wishes that Coulson would just shout out the awful things that Bucky doesn’t want to hear, because this sad eyed man who stands before him now, with news that Bucky is sure he will break to hear, is the most frightening and powerful man he can imagine.

“What is it?” He asks.

“We have bad news.” Coulson says.

And just like that, Bucky’s world falls apart.

There will be no saving Steve. Not from this one. Every test subject inundated with high volumes of the Tabula Rasa ray has been decimated. That’s the word Director Coulson uses. _Decimated_. Steve has regained his memory, sure, but it will slip away again, as well as everything else about him. They call what is happening to his brain “Flowers for Algernon” Syndrome. They say his body will return to his pre-serum state before shutting down altogether. They say it is already happening.

“Isn’t there anything?” Bucky asks, looking up at the Director from the place where he has collapsed onto the unforgiving seats. He cradles his face in his hands and watches the world from between his fingers, as if he can hold himself together somehow. “Anything we can do?”

“In test subjects, massive blood transfusions and organ replacement surgeries have shown some success.” Dr. Simmons says, having joined them with a look of tremulous worry on her perfect, pretty face. “The problem is, we won’t be able to find a donor for Captain Rogers. He is utterly unique.”

Bucky’s head snaps up at this, the alarm bells ringing at full volume.

“Use me.” He says.

“What?” Director Coulson asks, while Doctor Simmons’s eyebrows shoot all the way up into her hairline.

“See if we are a match.” Bucky asks.

“The amount of bone marrow samples alone can’t come from a single living donor. Sir, I’m afraid it would be too—“

“If you say dangerous—“

“I was going to say risky, but the point stands. It’s not a good idea.”

“Neither is letting Captain America shrivel up and die.” Bucky had not realized he was on his feet, or that the volume of his voice had risen to a shout until he looks around and notices that all eyes are on him, including Natasha and Sam, through the glass observation walls of Steve’s room. Bucky backs down. “I’m sorry.” He says, shrinking into himself. “It’s not your fault.”

“You’re right.” Doctor Simmons says. “It isn’t. But if you want to try, we can see if you are a match. Your serum was the closest replica to Captain Roger’s. You never know.” She is cautiously optimistic as she speaks.

“If this is too dangerous, I reserve the right to pull the plug on the whole operation.” Director Coulson says. “I’m not risking losing both of you.”

 

The minute the first needle is in sight, Bucky has a fleeting moment of desire to back down after all. He smells the sting of antiseptic in the air. A sharp, metallic flavor coats the back of his tongue, and he wishes that he never made this call. Then he remembers that Steve is in the bed next to his and it all fits just right inside his head again. Of course he is here. There is nowhere else he could possibly be.

“Alright, Mr. Barnes, I need you to count backward from ten.”

“Ten. Nine. Eight…” He is gone before seven.

He awakes with a familiar flavor that he can’t identify in his mouth and a feeling like he has been hit by a truck. He knows that feeling.

“He’s awake.” He hears somebody say from beside him.

“Mr. Barnes, can you hear me?” A nurse asks. He nods, grimaces, wishes he hadn’t moved so quickly. “Good. The doctor will be in momentarily to brief you.” He gives her a tight smile, wary of moving again.

“Thanks.” He says. His voice is scratchy and rough, and his throat burns from the tubing that was inside not long before. He waits for the doctors in a state of suspended panic. There is nothing for him to do now. He has done all he can, given everything he has. It has to work. In the meantime, he can feel his body knitting itself back together, one cell at a time.

By the time the doctors arrive Bucky sits up in bed, feet fidgeting under the thin blanket. He sits on his hands so that he doesn’t rip the IV from his arm. It’s a bad memory.

“How is he?” He asks.

“Good evening, Mr. Barnes.” Dr. Cho says. “I have been overseeing the surgeries of both yourself and Captain Rogers.”

“Good.” Bucky says. There are few doctors that he trusts. He does trust her. “How is he?” He asks again.

“This is as experimental as any transplant can be. Two serum recipients, with different serums. But, as far as we can tell, you were a match. He has not rejected your blood transfusion and so far your bone marrow donation has been received well.”

Bucky collapses against the bed, exhausted.

“Dr. Simmons will be supervising your recovery. She can keep a closer eye on you than I can. My direct orders are that you rest and follow her orders. Understood?”

Bucky knows what she means. He wants to run to Steve’s side right away, but there is little he can do. He nods.

“Thank you.” He says. She nods and leaves Bucky with a newfound sense of relief.

Steve might be alright. This is a rare bird; Bucky doesn’t have this thought every day.

* * *

 

 

It only takes one day of Steve and Bucky’s combined efforts to get them moved into a dual room. Their annoyance to the staff and efforts to see each other are a hazard to the health of everybody, especially themselves. The relief on Bucky’s face is mirrored in Steve’s expression when they wheel Bucky into Steve’s room.

“Careful.” Steve says. “I haven’t brushed my teeth.” Bucky has already launched himself out of the chair and into Steve’s arms, to the background chorus of objections from the staff and a rousing collection of beeps from the various monitors to which they are both connected.

Bucky is released from the hospital only three days later, but as long as Steve is there, he can never truly be released. He sits at Steve’s bedside, watching for any sign, good or bad. Every twitch of Steve’s hand, any word that he utters, is catalogued in Bucky’s brain and stored away to be examined.

“Hey Stevie,” Bucky whispers from the pull-out couch, not unlike their nights together as children, although they both have infinitely more space and are much more comfortable.

“Yeah, Buck?” Steve asks.

“You ever think—“

“You’re always say that’s my problem. I don’t think.” Steve says with a lopsided smile.

“Shut up a minute. I’m asking you a question.” Bucky says. He is good natured about the interruption, quiet in his response. “You ever think that we share memories? Or remember things wrong? For instance, I have this memory of the time when we were in Russia with the Howlies. It was snowing and I bit it on a piece of ice, just like in a cartoon. Went right down with no grace at all, ankles over ass, and hit my head. I opened my eyes and saw every one of your dumb handsome faces looking down at me in a circle.”

“No.” Steve says, laughing. “That was me.”

“I know. You think it was you that happened to. You told the story to Clint just a few days ago.”

“I remember.” Steve says.

“So that’s what I’m saying. Did it happen to you? To me? To one of the other boys? Did it happen at all or did we both dream it?” Bucky asks without wanting an answer and he doesn’t get one. “I think sometimes we make the most of a memory because it is a good one. Sometimes we put ourselves in somebody else’s place for no good reason at all. Sometimes, we just hold on to a moment because it feels right, and for no other reason.”

“I couldn’t tell you, Buck.” Steve says, shrugging. “All I know is, I want to hang on to every second I ever had with you.”

Bucky smiles and takes Steve’s hand.

 

Steve is released from medical forty-eight hours later, after every conceivable test and scan. The news makes Bucky feel as if something other than blood fills him, a warmth that he cannot describe, liquid joy. He has spent his life saving Steve, following him into battle and protecting him. This is just another victory in his lifelong mission, but it feels like his best. The cherry on top is a brief and congratulatory visit from Dr. Garner.

“I have never seen anything like it.” Dr. Garner says to Bucky in a private moment. “The recovery has been remarkable.”

“He is doing a lot better.” Bucky agrees.

“Yes, Steve certainly is.” Dr. Garner says, smiling in his indulgent way, “but I was actually talking about you, Bucky.” He says. He offers a handshake and takes his leave, making Bucky promise to schedule appointments for Steve and himself as soon as he is comfortable.

After they have said goodbye and gathered their things, Steve walks from the ward at Bucky’s side. When they reach the doors and feel the cool air on their skin, it is like being reborn.

“If all of my memories started over today,” Steve says as he stops to face Bucky, “I would want them to begin with this.” His lips meet Bucky’s in the softest touch, and Bucky closes his eyes to everything but Steve and the sigh that passes between them.

* * *

 

_The world will always welcome lovers as time goes by._

**Author's Note:**

> The first part of this chapter was posted on my tumblr, which you should definitely come follow!  
> (mademoisellemigraine.tumblr.com)


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